1. Technical Field
The present disclosure generally relates to a glass substrate cutting apparatus using a laser, and more specifically, to a glass substrate cutting apparatus using a laser, where a gantry structure moves while uniformly maintaining a relative position by using gantry stages installed on right and left sides of a cutting table in parallel. The glass substrate cutting apparatus includes two parts for a laser cutting head: laser beam generators, each including a heavy-weighted laser oscillation source and a power supply part, fixed to respective ends of the gantry structure, and laser irradiation heads, each including a beam delivery system, a beam shaping lens, a quenching nozzle, and an initial cracker, which are relatively lightweight units, moving horizontally along the gantry structure. As described above, since the laser cutting head is separated into two parts, the gantry structure resists sinking even in case of location movement of a load, and it is possible to minimize deterioration of stability and a cutting degree caused by positional distortion of a laser beam path owing to sinking of the gantry structure.
2. Background
Prior art methods for cutting a glass substrate include a scribe wheel method. The scribe wheel method is a method for installing fine diamonds on a circumferential surface of a disk having a predetermined diameter, and for forming a scribe line of predetermined depth on a surface of the glass substrate by contacting the diamonds with a prearranged cutting line to be cut by rotating the installed diamonds at high speed. That is, the scribe wheel method refers to a method for cutting the glass substrate by propagating cracks to the substrate along the scribe line after applying physical shock to the glass substrate where the scribe line is formed. However, the scribe wheel method needs cutting margins of at least a certain size. Moreover, a separate cleaning process and drying process are essential to remove particles generated during a cutting process. Also, cut sections are not smooth and a cost of expendables is increased.
To overcome such disadvantages, glass substrate cutting apparatuses using lasers have been used. In prior art glass substrate cutting apparatuses using lasers, a cutting table on which a glass substrate is located has been moved in a cutting direction while maintaining a laser cutting head in a fixed state. Fixed placement of the laser cutting head in such systems has been required because precise control of the cutting head is difficult due to a load of the laser cutting head if the laser cutting head moves, since laser beam generators are heavy. The laser beam generators have a load of approximately 250 kg to 300 kg. Thus, if this load moves, a structure which supports the laser cutting head may sink, resulting in positional distortion of a path of a laser beam and deterioration of a cutting degree and stability.
Prior art glass substrate cutting apparatuses using lasers do not move the laser cutting head during a cutting process, which can magnify cutting stability. In such systems, a cutting table is moved instead. As a result, a layout area for installing the cutting table is large and a significant amount of time is required to return the cutting table to the original position. As such, productivity is reduced because of an increase in cycle time.